Influence Wars - Japan 1936 HPP Interactive AAR - GAMEPLAY THREAD

Surt said:

Can you guess on if we have seen them ever or they all 3 are in the Atlantic fleet?

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We do know that the USS West Virginia has been in the Pacific mid-late '41. However, we did not sink her as far as we know and are currently unaware of where she is. What remains of the US Pacific fleet is probably waiting on the US west coast for reinforcements. Speaking of the US Atlantic fleet, my staff assumes that the US massed most of their assets in their initial strike at Saipan. Once we managed to sink a large part of their Pacific fleet, it seems that they transferred a sizable part of their Atlantic fleet to the Pacific theatre. These units were, to the best of our knowledge, mostly sunk as well. As far as we are aware, we sunk:

12x BB
3x CV
1x CVL
19x CA
19x CL
31x DD
14x SS

As you can see, we did inflict a lot of damage, but we also do expect them to come back to us soon-ish. Remember, we know about three (3) battleships still at their disposal. Hence my advise to keep three fleets near Hawaii and detach a 4th fleet for support role in China.

Gen Surt and Gen Holy Death,

I am willing to wait with the laying down of the required two new battleships until the IJN Kurama (BC) has been finished. However, I do not see much point in delaying further and not only from "my" budget. I could agree to cut down light cruiser (CL) production to two, though.

To Admiral Baltasar:

Until mountain divisions will be possible to recruit I see little point in delaying ships' construction as the IJA should be able to maintain infrastructure development and a single garrison unit for now. After research of mountaineers, however, we could use additional budget to field units ASAP. Supply situation in China only confirms that we need specialists to open the way and reduce the amount of troops already involved, which can be used on other possible fronts.

[OOC] The forum ate my post so I'm just posting key points[/OOC]

Memorandum:
1. Switching to production of light bombers is pointless. Our Heavy Fighters are certainly 20% better in a ground attack roll (5SA to 4SA), and we already have all the related doctrines for the fighters, but not LB.
1.1 - Building Light bombers takes longer
1.2 - While they [LB] would be useful in Russia against soviet armour, they have poor range (H-ftr have about 600km compared to 200km)

2. Ok Adm.Baltersar the 3rd fleet can stay as you suggested with the 4 most heavily damaged CAG to give them time for repair and refit. The rest of the otherwise undeployed/mentioned air assets shall return to China.

3. Mountain divisions are a long term investment, not a short term solution. Hence building them won't help in China unless the war rages for another year.
3.1 - Leadership is precious and I'd rather the investment be for strategic reasons. Mountain troops will be useful in Burma, Kharbovsky coast near Sakaharlin, Xibei and the Stannovoys, which are fairly limited locales now the main battles in China are concluded along the coast.
3.2 - Air power will be a deciding factor against the Soviets and Allies who do have strong bomber wings. Having quick next generation aircraft for intercept missions is paramount in importance.
3.3 - Careful mission planning can mitigate for lack of mountain troops.
3.4 - Artillery shouldn't be coupled to mountain divisions, it's hard enough carrying a rifle up a mountain, let alone the big guns! (Lowers the mountain fighting bonuses...which is why you producing mountain troops in the first place... )

4. If our spy cells in America have broken American counter-intelligance teams, then switching them over to support pro-japanese political commentators might help distance ourselves from the 'Nazis' in Europe and make an American-British Alliance less likely
4.1 - Britain will not side with the Americans unless the British are at war with us, since the British have everything to loose from Hong Kong to Burma and India if they join in Americas war. Therefore keeping our threat down in the British Empire is the greatest of concerns here.

5. There looks to only be three industrial sites left within China at; Guiyang, Kunming and Bose this is few enough for a weeks worth of bombing, from 1936 intelligence.
5.1 - I estimate the Chinese have only 8IC base
5.2 - It would be interesting to see what our Spies left in China estimate since they must have built extra to supply that large army.
5.3 - Mao might looks to have little industry too, but bombing him would be a waste
5.4 - Our long range bombers should be able to reach all Chinese industry bar Golmud

6. I share long term concerns with Gen.Surt, I believe our long term strategy should be one of perimeter defence and plan for the inevitable attacks by the Soviets or Allies, if at any point we feel confident to hold off one, while being able to make a preventative strike against the other we can do so.
6.1 Did we "Advertise the Solider Profession" or "Call in the Reserves" yet? if not, Don't. Because if we take either of these opitions after China has been pacified we can call on the Chinese men and women to fight for asia too. This gives us more men than guns, and so massing a mass army with our high industrial capacity, even if it is of substandard troops will give us a great ability to hold off any attacks from the Soviets or Allies simply by weight of numbers.

Holy.Death said:

To Admiral Baltasar:

Until mountain divisions will be possible to recruit I see little point in delaying ships' construction as the IJA should be able to maintain infrastructure development and a single garrison unit for now. After research of mountaineers, however, we could use additional budget to field units ASAP. Supply situation in China only confirms that we need specialists to open the way and reduce the amount of troops already involved, which can be used on other possible fronts.

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General Holy, I think we need to agree on whether we want to go for mountain units at all first before you refuse the navy's offer.

At the moment I see no reason for paying for a specialized unit that is twice as expensive for minimal advantages when we in the future would need many more units considering our potential enemies.

Memo to Imperial General HQ,

The discussion on LB, MB, H.Ftr need to be put to rest.

In my opinion the cost for bringing MB tech up to date is enormous, the price tag to build them is stupendous and there role can be filled by H.Ftr though not as well but at a much lower cost.
Same goes for the LB, H.Ftr can fill the role and have a much better range.
The advantages of building only H.Ftr is that they are multi-role, they can be used as fighters, bombers, even navs (but badly), they don't perform as well as the specialized planes but we can't have everything. We need to remind our front line generals that the H.Ftr also can be used as bombers and not only as interceptors, this is the reason we build them, well in addition to their superior range.

We could build some more LB, but with all the complaining about short ranges we should concentrate on the H.Ftr.

To Admiral Yamamoto:

Unless...

I see little reason behind the confidence that China won't last a year. I see it more likely. We all estimated that war will last, what, a year? Total? That's why I want to deploy mountain divisions. To make sure there will be no "unless". That's why I want to focus on close air support, to further help our units on the ground in breaking through the Chinese lines. I don't find your arguments about costs convincing, not in the situation we have in China. They suit more an accountant than a military man, but wars aren't win by money counters. We can't spare on strategy. Prove my strategy wrong by hard facts, Admiral, not by acting like a book-keeper.

To General Surt:

I see two reasons, General Surt; China to the west and U.S.R.R. to the north, to point out only our most immediate concerns. I think that we all agree that in case of the expected attack from the U.S.R.R. we won't counter-attack by Siberia proper but through Mongolia, thus making our future mountain divisions even more useful in stalling the Red Army in North Korea. Everywhere in uplands and mountains of the world our specialists can be of use. I agree that cost of mountain divisions can seem too much, but I see it quite low. Why? Because if we manage to break the Chinese then mountain divisions can guard Korea and this move will free all our forces entangled in war in China. With lesser but more specialized force we avoid supply problems, allowing us to use more air support. With more air support we can focus on either breaking through the enemy lines or destroying his industry, also relieved troops can be used elsewhere.

I'll have to trust the wisdom of our Heavenly Sovereign.

I fully agree that light bombers would be a waste or resources. They do not have any better stats than our CAGs.

We agreed to build CAGs back in '36 simply because they can be used on land as well as on sea. Unfortunately, we lost some air wings in the early stages of the war in China and we did find out that the CAGs are fragile and need constant replenishment when the USA stabbed us in the back in mid-'41. Since then, we've started to increase production of new wings, though the constant fighting with the USN has resulted in a constant exchange of battle worthy CAG wings with those in need of repair.

The most logical way to move on, from my point of view, was described earlier. I would like to stress that I am reculant to leave the depleted CAG wings on Hawaii, simply because we might need them sooner than they are ready. For this reason, I must insist that four (4) battle worthy CAG wings are to be stationed aboard 3rd fleet carriers. Other battle worthy CAG wings should be transferred to 4th fleet but all CAG wings in need of replenishment must be given a break, preferably in Japan.

Mountain troops do seem to be a viable idea for my untrained eyes. I just do not see how we can afford them, considering that we need new ships quickly.

Furthermore, I agree with Adm Yamamotos idea of having our spies in the US spread our point of view in this whole thing, if we can be reasonably sure that the US do not have many counter-spies.

Memorandum:

What I should have phrased is Light Bomber and Ground attack doctrine are lagging compared to interdiction and fighter doctrine. I blame an error in the transmission of reply for my abrupt phrasing earlier. Furthermore I have not advocated us switching to medium bomber, twin engined aircraft, naval bombers or any bomber in my strategic suggestions.

My strategic suggestions are focused directly on what we have, what strengths we can capitalise on, and what weaknesses we can avoid. Light Bombers are not as effective in ground attack rolls compared to our heaver fighter aircraft patrolling in interdiction ones. The heavy fighters have weapons better suited to taking out soft targets than heavy bombers. The heavy fighters also cost us less industry to build, and they have much larger range. For the entire asian theatre where airfields are few and far between range is an important factor.

I prove the strategy wrong by acting as a book keeper and looking at the relative merit of light bombers compared to heavy fighter aircraft, and the numbers point towards heavy fighters being our better option taking everything into consideration.

I'm reluctant to start looking into specialist mountain troops because we are going to fill up a research slot for an extended length of time (at least a year) to make these specialists worthwhile at a time when we are critically still needing to upgrade existing assets doctrine to make what we already have more effective. Mountain troops will not come 'quickly' to be effective in my opinion. If we do invest in them it is for where do we want to be in 2 years time or so. I certainly don't want to be fighting in China for another year if it can be helped. So I'd rather go for using our industry to build what we already know how to build well at the moment and at a bit of speed.

I agree mountain troops would be a boon, but I doubt that we should be producing them for China, and I think a corps would serve us overall better in Burma than along the Kharbovsky coast, or the Stannovoys. I mean, the other General will tell you he is likely in favour of any operations in Manchuria revolving around an encirclement through the woods and planes towards Chumikan, where there are no mountains in sight! In Manchuria, unless we are pushed back to the Korean border the only mountains in possible areas of conflict are the Huma-Qiqihar range and a couple at Baley.

In Mongolia yes, mountain would be again useful in those hills, but operationally the Trans-siberian railway doesn't run right across the hills, it runs around the low lands towards Irkust. So I see limited strategic worth for special mountain corps in Manchuria.

Strategically we should have built mountain troops before the invasion of China, but we didn't, the general opinion was against me, and it's a bit late to be building them...a knee jerk reaction seeing a stalemate and blaming it on incorrect equipment when it was 'always known' that normal infantry won't fair as well in rough terrain. Of course the plan of the time was to force a Chinese surrender ahead of fighting in this terrain and not letting the Chinese get dug in with number.

The American Intervention meant that we had to pull troops and aircraft away from China, which meant we lost the advantage of the pocket we eliminated because the Chinese were left a breather and were able to regroup, rebuild and dig in.

That is the reason we are in this situation. Because we had to deal with an unfortunate change of priorities.


With troops and aircraft returning and a priority put on the Chinese theatre over the Pacific we should be able to push back in the south. We have seen that the nationalists are beginning to build forts from the intelligence supplied, therefore we know that it would be prudent for the army to invest a team in fort busting weapons ahead of mountain corps anyhow since we already have brigades of engineers which we employ in this roll.

Capitalise on advantages, and minimise weaknesses.

Escort fighters limit the range of our already not that long range bombers, it would be better to wait until we have perfected drop tanks before looking towards escort aircraft.


[OOC] The comments on NAV were in the comment thread discussing the fact that NAV gains from the Marine Attack Ordinance, but CAG gains from that AND Sea Attack Roll, since we haven't got that latter there is a big difference still. But like I said comment thread; I wasn't saying here that earlier.[/OOC]

Memo to imperial General HQ, regarding spies in USA.

Instead of spreading lies to lower a presumed very high national unity, we should steal their technology instead, maybe we can get some advantage there.

To General Surt:

Nobody wants to lower the national unity of the Americans. We consider supporting our sympathizers there.

What about the Axis offer of information for supplies and money? I think we can afford the deal.

To Administration:

To General Surt:

To Admiral Baltasar:

The deal with the Axis should only be concluded if we get regular updates. If it's a once in a lifetime thing, we should consider it once we are at war with the Allies.

This Admiral approves the administration's research suggestion.

Message to Gen Surt and Gen Holy Death:

Do you approve of my suggestion to transfer the light fighters to Hawaii? I assume they are not being useful in China anyway.